The Assassin's Prayer

by Mark Allen

  The moment withered away and crawled back into its dark hole. Would it ever surface again? He had no way of knowing. How many times can you crush hope before it finally dies? Kain suspected he would find out before his life was over. Which would be sooner rather than later if Macklin or Silas had their way.

  Kain felt anger doing a slow-burn inside him, simmering like hot coals. He was sick of walking around with a target on his back, wondering when the bullet with his name would strike, if the next moment would be his last. He possessed plenty of wealth but it was all blood money and thus unable to buy him any peace. Beggars on the street slept better than him because their consciences were clean. They also possessed another thing Kain did not—the ability to reciprocate love, and right now Kain was well aware of how much that was worth. His twisted emotions howled inside him, cold with despair and hot with rage all at the same time.

  Larissa moved beside him. “Hey, are you sure you’re all right?”

  He heard the concern in her voice, the love she felt for him, and rage stirred anew. He wanted to lash out at the futility of his life, a life so dark and violent he could never share it with a woman for fear it would get her killed, just like it had killed Karen. As much as he wanted to be with Larissa, he couldn’t bear the thought of another innocent dying because of him.

  An image of a desolate, wind-swept grave with his wife’s name etched in the stone appeared in his mind and his lips tightened in a grim line.

  “Travis?” Larissa reached up and touched his face.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking about Karen.”

  He saw pain on her face, there one moment, gone the next. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why?” he said, more harshly than he intended. “You didn’t kill her.” He wanted a drink. Not a good sign, especially this early in the morning.

  “Neither did you.”

  “In a way, yes, I did.”

  “I don’t think you really believe that.”

  Kain said nothing and the silence stretched between them, broken only by the beating of their hearts. It was a silence made for grim thoughts and Kain obliged by thinking of his murdered wife, of Macklin’s blade carving open her wrists, her blood staining the water. He then thought of Larissa’s slain husband, of Macklin’s bullets tearing him apart, spraying his blood all over Larissa’s screaming face. Eyes soft with pain, Kain looked down at Larissa. They shared the same wounds.

  But she had survived, refusing to let life twist her into a bitter, hate-filled shell. Instead, she had rolled with the punches, accepted her pain, and moved on. Ripped by grief and tried by fire, she had emerged from the flames stronger than before, a beautiful blend of silk and steel. Kain knew he paled in comparison, choosing to live his life haunted by the past rather than embracing the future. Anger was his shield; bitterness, his armor. That was the harsh truth and oh God did it sting like hell.

  He slid out of bed and padded naked to the window. He turned the crank to open it and felt the brisk morning air on his skin. Outside, ground fog clung to the earth in an unbroken marsh of mist as far as the eye could see. It would burn away soon enough, melted by the rising sun, but for now it smothered everything in a gray shroud. Here and there bare branches protruded through the fog’s surface like the fleshless fingers of long-dead corpses struggling to rise from their soupy graves.

  The cool air caused gooseflesh to crawl across Kain’s body. Rubbing his arms for warmth, he looked up at the sky. It was clear and growing lighter by the minute. Soon the sun would show its face, the fog would disappear, Cobb would return, and hopefully they could spend the day in relative peace, safe from their hunters, at least for now.

  Leaving the window open, Kain walked back across the room and got dressed, listening to the birdsong coming through the window. Now that dawn was here, the woods were coming alive.

  Larissa smiled from the bed. “You always were an early riser.”

  Kain slipped on his shoulder rig, checked the .45 to ensure there was a bullet in the pipe, then slid the gun into its holster. “Some things never change.”

  “You don’t have to remind me of that,” she said.

  Kain glanced at her and the love in her eyes was unmistakable. Uncomfortable, he turned away. A moment later he heard the sound of an approaching engine. It was still some distance down the road, but getting closer.

  “Sounds like Grampy’s back,” Larissa said.

  Kain almost agreed, but then the sound separated into plural components. It wasn’t one engine he was hearing, it was two. Coldness crept through his veins. “That’s not Grampy.”

  Larissa sat up in bed, spurred by his sudden tension. “Talon?”

  “Either that or some very determined Jehovah’s Witnesses.” He picked her clothes up off the floor and handed them to her. “Get dressed. We have to get out of here.”

  Larissa began pulling on her clothes as fast as she could. Meanwhile, Kain rigged the cabin door with enough C-4 to reduce the place to toothpicks. The first unlucky Talon operative to breach the cabin was going to be in for one nasty surprise. Knock-knock. Bang-bang. Bye-bye.

  By the time he finished, the rumble of engines was very close. Moving quickly, he helped Larissa out the open window in the back room, then grabbed the duffel bag and crawled out after her. Grabbing her hand, he led her into the evergreen thicket on the other side of the road. Their breath plumed in the cold morning air. Frost-coated leaves, hidden by the ground fog, crunched under their feet. Once in the thicket, they hugged the earth, using the soupy mist for concealment, and waited for Talon to arrive. Kain checked the shotgun, making sure it was loaded to capacity. If Macklin gave him an opportunity, Kain was determined to take the bastard out.

  The rumble of the engines evolved into a full-throated roar. Two Hummers lumbered into sight, dirt spewing from their knobby, oversized tires. Kain saw Macklin riding shotgun in the lead vehicle and felt a rush of rage hot enough to turn bone to ash. His finger curled around the SPAS-12’s trigger, but he knew he couldn’t take the shot. The Hummers appeared to be military-grade and that meant heavy armoring and bulletproof glass. If he fired at Macklin now, the shot would just bounce harmlessly off the Hummer and leave their position exposed, which would be a pointless waste and tactical mistake. So he put a leash on his rage and took his finger off the trigger.

  Above, the sky lightened, dawn yielding to day. The fog felt cold and clammy on his skin. Larissa knelt beside him, hugging herself for warmth. Kain’s eyes softened when he looked at her. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, they hardened again as he turned back toward Black Talon. They were the eyes of vengeance and had Larissa been able to see into their depths, she would have felt a moment of breathless fear at the primal forces contained in the heart of the man she had never stopped loving.

  The Hummers halted almost directly in front of Kain, the roar of their monstrous 6.5 liter V-8 engines deafening in their proximity. A moment later, the engines were killed and Macklin and the five remaining members of Black Talon exited the vehicles. Kain fixed his gaze on the man who had murdered his wife for no other reason than sheer amusement and felt his pulse quicken, throbbing with fury.

  Using the Hummers as shields between themselves and the cabin, Macklin and his operatives braced their Heckler & Koch MP5/10 submachine guns across the hoods, roofs, and bumpers. The woods seemed to have gone absurdly quiet. The fog slithered like a living entity, suffusing the scene with surrealistic stillness. It was as if nature itself was holding its breath. A dead leaf fell from a nearby oak and Kain imagined he could actually hear the sound of the stem breaking away from the branch. His eyes followed the leaf as it floated toward the ground.

  And then the silence was shattered.

  “FIRE!” Macklin roared with his mangled voice, slamming back his trigger.

  Nine H&Ks blazed in unison, singing a hi-powered hell-song.

  Crouched in the fog, Kain watched the 10mm bullets pound the cabin. The wave of lead tore hundreds of ho
les in the walls and exploded the windows as Talon raked the place from floor to rafters. Kain smiled coldly. It was overkill, and that let Kain know just how dangerous Macklin considered him to be. It was flattery by firepower.

  The magazines in the MP5/10s emptied in a matter of seconds. Silence returned and burnt cordite left a bite in the air. Spent brass littered the vehicles. More brass would be rolling around under the operatives’ feet, hidden by the fog. Beside him, Larissa remained as still as humanly possible. Macklin motioned for one of his Talon soldiers to check the cabin.

  The man nodded, dropped into a combat crouch, and hustled over the mist-shrouded terrain until he hugged the cabin wall. He cautiously edged toward the porch. The air was so still that even from fifty yards away, Kain could hear the shattered glass crunching under the operative’s boots. He watched with grim anticipation as the man ascended the rickety steps and kicked open the door.

  The cabin erupted in a massive, disintegrating blast. The roof lurched into the sky, riding a mushroom cloud of roiling flame. The walls burst apart and sprayed sharp fragments of wood in all directions like shrapnel, turning the Talon soldier into human confetti.

  Macklin and his remaining operatives ducked for cover behind the Hummers as burning debris washed over them. A flaming board bounced off a windshield in a splash of sparks. A Talon gunner crumpled to the ground with a sword-sized shard of wood embedded in his throat. More high-velocity wood slivers ripped open another man’s leg, slashing his femoral artery in three different places and guaranteeing a quick demise.

  From his place of concealment, Kain watched Macklin climb to his feet, mud dripping from his hands, knees, and elbows. If Macklin was smart, he would retreat, withdraw the few troops he had left, and reorganize for another assault at a later time. But Kain had no intention of letting that happen. It ends today, he thought. Right here, right now.

  With Macklin positioned on the far side of the Hummer, Kain didn’t have the proper angle to kill his nemesis just yet. But he could damn sure keep him from getting away.

  Kain raised the shotgun. Fog fell from the barrel like an unwanted veil. He pressed it to his shoulder and lined up the sights, aiming low. Only moments ago, his rage had been white-hot; now it was ice-cold.

  Focused on the fiery ruin of the cabin and his dying men, Macklin never sensed the danger lurking in the fog behind him.

  Kain pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession.

  The buckshot whipped under the Hummer and chopped into Macklin’s exposed boots.

  The blasts shredded through his calves and ankles and literally blew his feet off. Macklin went down, grunting in sudden pain, but managed to pull himself behind the front tire and out of the line of fire. Kain glimpsed a mess of torn flesh and splintered bone where Macklin’s lower legs should have been. Unless he could walk on his bloody stumps, Macklin wasn’t going anywhere.

  His enemy hobbled by a twelve-gauge double amputation, Kain turned his attention to the remaining two Talon commandos.

  Both were on Kain’s side of the Hummers. Neither knew where Kain was because he was crouched down low in the fog. This lack of knowledge meant they could not take evasive action; in order to move away from a threat, one must know where the threat is located. So they simply knelt down beside the vehicles and scanned the woods, peering over assault weapons tucked tight to their shoulders, seeking target acquisition.

  They quickly found out they were the targets and they had already been acquired.

  Kain triggered two quick shots from the SPAS-12. The first operative took the brunt of the blast right below the eyebrows and went somersaulting backward with the top half of his head churned to pulp. The second Talon soldier caught a dose of buckshot low in his torso. The sledgehammer blow folded him in half and he flopped face-down in the muck.

  Smoke twisted in ghostly curls from the barrel of the shotgun as Kain stood up, watching impassively as the two bodies twitched spastically. Black Talon was decimated, gutted, a total loss. All that remained was to put down the mad dog that had led them.

  “Wait here,” Kain said to Larissa.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To finish this.”

  He edged cautiously toward the Hummer behind which Macklin sat, badly wounded. But even badly wounded, Kain knew better than to underestimate Macklin. The man had survived having his throat cut. It would take more than losing his feet to rob him of his lethality.

  As he crossed the pungent, swampy earth, Kain saw a shape moving inside the cab of the Hummer. He instantly realized that Macklin had crawled in. Kain closed the gap as fast as he could, but Macklin managed to slam the door shut and hit the locks, securing himself inside a shell of armor plating and bulletproof glass.

  Kain stood outside and glared at him. He thought about venting his frustration by emptying the SPAS-12 into the windshield, but knew it would just be a waste of shells.

  Inside the Hummer, Macklin quickly ripped strips from his shirt and fashioned tourniquets which he tied around both thighs to keep himself from bleeding out. When he was done, he leaned back in the passenger seat, face an unhealthy shade of white, but smiling his cruel, razor-slash of a grin. “So close, Kain, and yet so far.”

  “You’re acting like the game is over,” Kain said. “From where I’m standing, looks like checkmate, asshole.”

  “I’ve stopped the bleeding, so all I have to do now is call for backup and then sit here and wait. You say I’ve lost the game, I say I’m just pausing.”

  Kain smiled coldly. “Hold that thought.”

  He walked back over to Larissa and pulled a brick of C-4 out of his duffel bag.

  “Is it over?” she asked.

  “Almost,” Kain said. “Just need to burn the snake out of his hole.”

  He walked back over to the Hummer and slapped the explosive onto the windshield right in front of Macklin’s face.

  Macklin’s grin faded and for a moment there was true fear in his eyes. But he recovered quickly. “Go ahead,” he taunted. “I’d rather be blown to bits than come out there and let you get your hands on me.”

  “Sit there and burn,” Kain rasped, setting the detonator for thirty seconds, “or come out here and let me kill you.” He plunged the detonator into the C-4. “Either way, you’re dead.”

  He ducked behind a tree outside the blast radius and yelled, “Larissa, keep your head down! Fire in the hole!” He peered around the trunk just enough to lock eyes with Macklin through the windshield as the numbers ran down toward zero.

  Macklin held fast and defiant until there were just five seconds to go. Then his survival instincts kicked into high gear. He scrambled to open the door and threw himself out as the final second expired.

  The explosion tore the Hummer apart.

  The fiery blast picked Macklin up in midair like a giant fist and hurled him into a nearby tree. He smashed into it with his back and his body folded around the trunk at an unnatural angle, like a piece of cooked spaghetti thrown against a fence post. Even over the crackle of flames, Kain heard the crisply audible crack of Macklin’s spine snapping in two.

  Kain found the Talon leader lying broken and paralyzed at the foot of the tree. The blast had singed off most of his hair and his clothes were smoldering. He gazed up at Kain with eyes that begged for death.

  Kain was happy to oblige.

  He pulled out his dagger and crouched down in front of Macklin. Without hesitation, he drove the blade hilt-deep into the side of Macklin’s neck, at the exact point where the ghastly scar began. “This is for my wife, you son of a bitch,” he rasped, then rip-sawed the razor-sharp knife all the way through Macklin’s throat, following the path of the scar, cutting carotids, jugular, and windpipe in one savage stroke. “This time you die for real.” Blood spurted in a geyser from the gaping wound.

  Kain ignored the splatter and stared into Macklin’s eyes as he died. It was finally over. The man who had murdered his wife, gunned down Larissa’s husband, and who had put a bullet
in her head and blinded her for life, was finally dead.

  He stood up and headed back to the other side of the road where Larissa waited. As he rounded the rear of the burning Hummer, he walked past the fallen body of the Talon operative he had shotgunned low in the torso. With his attention focused on getting back to Larissa, he never saw the operative—whom he had believed to be dead—raise the MP-5/10 with a trembling hand.

  His first hint of danger was a triple burst of autofire from behind him. All three slugs flew wide due to the gunner’s unsteady hand, but not by much. They slammed into a tree to Kain’s left, carving away splinters and fragments.

  He reacted instantly, rolling to his right behind another tree, using it to shield himself from the Talon soldier. He desperately looked for Larissa.

  She was right where he had left her, hidden in the fog, just her head visible through the thin wisps that formed the top layer of the mist. She was smart enough to stay down, but she couldn’t keep from crying out, “Travis!”

  The Talon gunner fired in the direction of her voice, spraying the fog with bullets.

  Kain heard the telltale slap of lead against flesh and saw Larissa’s head jerk to the side. Icy fingers reached into his chest and gripped his heart as he saw blood cascading down her face. She slumped into the mud as the fog turned crimson. No! Kain screamed silently, the words trapped in his constricted throat. Not again!

  He raised the SPAS-12, Larissa’s blood-drenched face driving him to kill. The shotgun roared again and again and again, smashing apart the man’s chest and shredding his heart and lungs.

  The threat neutralized, he ran to Larissa, pulling her close and frantically feeling for a pulse. It was weak and fluttery, but it was there. She was alive, but God only knew for how long. The left side of her face was dark with blood. He had to get her to a hospital.

  His breath plumed in the autumn air and he trembled, not from the cold, but from the thought of losing her. Please, God, don’t let her die on me.